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Ayase is no hypocrite here. The point is that Kyousuke was turning things around: Now Kirino isn't the driving otaku force behind everything anymore. Instead, it's Kyousuke who tainted Kirino with his otaku ideas (something which relates to Ayase's earlier suspicion of "Give me back my pure Kirino"), and this makes Kirino a VICTIM of his otaku abuse and siscon fantasies. Now it's Kyousuke's perverted attempt to get into his sister's pants who's the enemy, and Kirino needs to be protected from Kyousuke's influence. THIS is why she decided to immediately reconcile with Kirino, to be closer to her in order to SHIELD her from Beelzebub Kyousuke.

I agree Ayase isn't a hyprocrite, but my understanding was that Ayase saw right through Kyousuke's lie ("lying brother"), yet still used it as an excuse to make up with Kirino. However, while she knows full well that Kyousuke isn't the root of all evil, I think she's truly convinced that Kirino's current relationship with her brother could evolve into incest: she's now aware that Kirino loves incest doujins (she doesn't know why though) and she's already witnessed first-hand how close the two siblings are and how far Kyousuke went to protect her. In the end, even though the lie in itself was more or less ineffective, it still allowed Ayase to notice the looming "threat" and provided her with the push she needed to get past Kirino's otaku tendencies and properly make up with her.

Agreed... otaku subculture certainly does have "societal integration" challenges but the media in Japan basically act as "witch burning mob instigators" by reinforcing bullshit memes to maximize misplaced fear and anxiety. Its like the nonsense D&D "satanism" BS pulled in the 80s by wackjob 'religious nuts' who made a lot of money scaring parents, supplemented with the media alarm (anyone ever see that piece of tv movie garbage called "Mazes and Monsters" starring Tom Hanks?) only multiplied 100 times. Today you can watch the media in the US or Japan completely miss the boat on subcultures or fads (for which you either conclude they are malicious or utterly clueless idiots but either way they scare you into watching through the commercial breaks).

Japanese society is historically quite intolerant of the 'different' ... which is really bizarre if you watch the absurd fads the 'mainstream' latches onto there.

I would also add the anti-video game movement of recent years to the mix. Video gaming has, admittedly, come a long way in terms of its social acceptance; however, there is still that overly vocal group who insist that many video games are "combat simulations designed to train kids to become killers" and they have a repository of highly reported cases of kids claiming they perpetrated violence on their schools and others in order to emulate what they saw/did in a game.

My favorite part of the episode was Kyousuke's comment about how Ayase was judging the hobby and its fans without even knowing anything about them, which is exactly what happens in reality and not just with anime fandom. Pick any hobby and you'll find people who generalize about it and its followers based on what is, at best, a caricature of what the hobby and its crowd is actually like. I must admit I'm at fault for this for a number of hobbies, and it is hard to overcome your own biases about some things to get to any level of acceptance of a given thing.

The bottom line is hobbies and fandoms of all kinds have gotten to a point where we use them to identify what kind of a person someone is as readily as other such traits as religion, gender, political affiliation, race or sexual preference. The problem all too often is that we confuse these things for being who we are (ie. making the thing the total incarnation of our identity and sense of self) instead of just being what we are (ie. just one part of our identity and sense of self, which is far more complex than can be defined by a hobby/religion/sexuality/etc.). The only way we break down this barrier is through understanding, and it has to be a two-way street. Non-fans need to be willing to learn a little about the hobby, and fans need to be willing to share it more openly.

Location: I've moved around the American West. I've lived in Oregon, Washington, Utah, and Oklahoma

Age: 38

Quote:

Originally Posted by ID555

The way I see it, the 'dear lying onisan' and 'thanks to you' message meant Ayase was grateful that Kyousuke's crazy declaration at the end gave her a way to reconcile with Kirino while not abandoning her stance on hentai.

I agree that it can be interpreted other ways though.

I thought the message was from Kirino, thanking him and then just signing off with her typical threat to beat him if he tried anything with her friend.

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Cross Game - A Story of Love, Life, Death - and Baseball. What more could you want?

There were some very interesting things said here and I agree with most of them.
I really enjoy watching this - it tackles both a very serious (at least in Japan) social issue and the problems in relationships that come with it. I also like how the characters are seemingly full of room to develop (not that it will be fully explored by the end).
In the end it's simply interesting and entertaining to watch.

One thing I didn't get in this episode though - Kirino said her brother never cared for her his entire life and we know that from Kyousuke's point of view that she looks down on him, think he's an idiot and most of the time just outright ignores him. These two kind of don't fit together. Maybe that's the core of the problem here - Kirino not only finds little sisters cute - she might be playing the big brother role to actually experience what she wanted for herself. Obviously she loves these things for a different reason now but it might have been one of the reasons she started with them in the first place.

However, from what we heard Kyousuke say so far, his sister was the one that never tried to connect and thus she blaming him from not acting like a big brother doesn't make a lot of sense. Surely there are times when one wants to be comforted or supported yet he doesn't tell anyone about that so when no one does it they generally get upset. However, acting cold towards those who do and later blaming them for not being there is a bit immature.

As a brother, if your sisters pretend you don't exist or that your presence annoys her you'll start to avoid communicating with her for the simple reason things seemingly get worse every time you try to. It makes me think Kirino was unable to convey her feelings properly for a very long time. I'm very interested in how this issue will be explored further and ultimately resolved in the end.

Turning Point
Manage to ask his father for adviced despite what he did in episode 03
Manage to use "siscon" excuse to change Ayase's mind. Please refer to episode 04 of Hatsukoi Limited for complete details of siscon and brocon (although the episode is more on brocon.)

Flag Minus
Ayase becoming his archenemy. I suspect that she even starts staying in their house for defensive reasons or ask Kirino to stay in her house.

Flag Plus
Getting Saori and Kuroneko a nod, after explaining what just unveiled which they understand.
Kirino now wants to play with him, after becoming eligible to play with other players, 2 player mode game.

I figured out why they stayed out of Manami for a while, since it would be used as a healing episode for Kyousuke after the recent beatings from his father, Kirino, and Ayase.

Japanese & other countries society have grown acceptable to otaku culture...
The problem of Kirino about hiding her hobby is a bit old type...
Today the member of AKB said we liked anime song.
But, I dont know the real people's atttitude to otaku changed or not.
Watching this show, I cannot understand Kirino's mind.
The situation of this character is good. smart,cute,able to run fast,having good(?)friends
why she worry about her hobby? Because it contain Eroge? I think teenager is interested in such things normaly. If she is not smart,cute,bad at sports, I can understand her, a bit...
BUt she have good skills so much. Her reputation in the school may be ruined so easily? Her friends leave her away so easily?
I love Kirino's decision to Ayase. But, poor Kuroneko & Saori... I disliked her saying about otaku friends, I dislike Kuroneko & Saori accepted what Kirino said about them...

I would've used somewhat different arguments but they were essentially the same.

The one thing is that I don't think Kyousuke made it quite clear that even if idiots like that do cite video games or whatever reason for their idiotic behaviour, it doesn't mean it's the video games fault. After all, if it's only affecting a minority then it's more likely it's because of some other external factor (in this case, an inability to discern reality from fiction). Everything else I can agree with.

Oh, and i agree with others that some scenes are touch too melodramatic. And I was sort of hoping it would turn out that Ayase was actually angry with Kirino for keeping such an important aspect of her life hidden from her because she thought Ayase might hate her for it, rather than because she has that kind of hobby.

Ayase is no hypocrite here. The point is that Kyousuke was turning things around: Now Kirino isn't the driving otaku force behind everything anymore. Instead, it's Kyousuke who tainted Kirino with his otaku ideas (something which relates to Ayase's earlier suspicion of "Give me back my pure Kirino"), and this makes Kirino a VICTIM of his otaku abuse and siscon fantasies. Now it's Kyousuke's perverted attempt to get into his sister's pants who's the enemy, and Kirino needs to be protected from Kyousuke's influence. THIS is why she decided to immediately reconcile with Kirino, to be closer to her in
order to SHIELD her from Beelzebub Kyousuke.

No, I think you misunderstand me a bit there, the part where I peg her as a hypocrite is not there, it's the bit after both Kyousuke and Kirino has given their defenses. After that, it seems that Ayase already see their point, but even then she still finds it hard to tolerate the otaku behavior, even when it's on her best friend.

That's where I find it a bit hypocritical; just before she gave the ultimatum for Kirino to choose between otakuism and herself, and fully expects Kirino to make the sacrifice to stick with her. Yet when it comes down to it, she herself can't choose friendship over her beliefs, and I find it a bit selfish and unfair (perhaps this more fitting than hypocritical, now that I think about it) that she forces Kirino to change in order to fit her yet can't bring herself to do the same. At this point, Kyousuke hasn't lied that he's the one influencing Kirino, so I think at that point Ayase still sees Kirino as a "true otaku" and not an "influenced otaku".

I feel like Ayase is quite dangerous because of the anime atmosphere - -'.

Kyousuke alway make many misunderstand confession , his idea/reason alway was great when come to defend for Kirino , thumb up for him. Become Kirino's brother is not a easy job.

Another thing about this episode is I think Kirino should not said bad about otaku when she bump into Ayase (since herself is a otaku too). Moreover it is point to her friend, which is a very bad, will hurt others and ownself. Well, it is just my opinion.

Haha, I just can't get enough of that glare Kirino shoots at Kyousuke everytime she's in a pinch!

I'm sorry, but I disagree with you there. Sure, I can see why you can consider that cute, but for me I fully understand Kyousuke's bewilderment "what are you looking at me for", for really, it makes no sense for her to ask for more help from him when he already went far enough for a situation that wasn't really his business or his fault to begin with.

Knowing Kirino, it is highly possible that she would claim that it is because of him that they went to the Natsu Comi, ultimately leading to this situation.
Unreasonable, but certainly fitting for her.

Seems like the next episode is going to be throwing in some jealousy material to spice things up

But yeah great episode overall. Ayase is really annoying, she's like one of those people who believe everything they read and watch and base their ideas upon mass consensus. Basically a tool.

Oh I completely agree with what you are pointing out. But, Ayase is just 14 aged.
She is enough matured, thinking about the days in which I was 14 years old...
Sometimes, I feel the children or students in the anime were too matured, as their age. I am not satisfied with Ayase's character,but I guess my dissatisfaction is due to misunderstanding her Age...